"Over-communicate. In the world of async work, it is best to over-communicate than to leave gaps - making people wonder what you really meant to say."

IMO, this is key. All of the previous async teams I've been on - the ones that worked the smoothest always over communicated.

Indeed! It does require to read more if you’ve got a wall of text as you wake up, but as things progress and people get in sync, communication tends to improve and become more efficient.

How do larger teams handle async updates outside of text? Are people supposed to share video updates and everyone is just expected to watch them?

The teams that I’ve worked on have always just done everything via messages but to touch on your point, we never had check ins in the first place. People are given complete autonomy and are responsible for outcomes. With issue tracking it’s easy to see who is blocking the work but that person usually pushes themselves on without any additional input. The whole thing is rather casual.

I must be working on the wrong types of teams :(

Hmm, I haven’t really had issue. The teams that were already async seemed to have figured it out. Perhaps having a smaller team is key? I can see how larger teams may be more difficult to stay on top of.